For the past few weeks, different sections of Rwandans have been rather uncomfortable, disturbed about news that the Kinyarwanda language was about to undergo some major changes. Even though these changes have not yet been implemented, it’s been said that the Rwanda Academy of Language and Culture (RALC) has recommended some rather significant changes in the manner in which the language should be written and spoken. These changes in themselves should not have been surprising, given the fact that from time immemorial languages in the world have been evolving, undergoing fundamental changes, some of them even dying off. A good example that easily comes to mind is Latin which today is known as the dead language, despite the fact that it is the original source of most contemporary languages. The other example is the Elizabethan or Shakespearean English which, its complications apart, is still used by academics in the 17th Century English literature. However, it would seem that what irked Rwandans was that those who took it upon themselves to modify the language structure do not have solid grounds on which they base their arguments on intended areas to be revised. For instance, many Rwandans vehemently criticise the idea that consonants “(n)jy” and “(n)cy” should be used only before vowels ‘a’, ‘o’ and ‘u’, and that before vowels ‘i’ or ‘e’ the consonants would take the form of ‘(n)gi’, ‘(n)ge’, ‘(n)ki’, ‘(n)ke.’ Looking critically at what would happen if the changes being proposed by RALC were implemented, many Banyarwanda, or Kinyarwanda speakers are inclined to think that so much of the richness of the language will be eroded, so much so that the language will lose its appeal, let alone its originality. Yet, these new changes, according to the academy, are aimed at removing all confusion in writing words in Kinyarwanda, especially those with the same sound. But this does not seem to be the case. Let readers who understand Kinyarwanda, take the word ‘Umujyi’ (town) as an example. According to the new version being proposed by RALC, Umujyi should be written as ‘Umugi’. But as you know, ‘umugi’ is an egg of a louse. And, as one of the editors in a local Kinyarwanda newspaper here in Rwanda ponders, if the word ‘Amajyepfo’ changes to ‘Amagepfo’ and the pronoun ‘Jyewe becomes ‘gewe’ and many other awkward changes like these, how will the Kinyarwanda language differ from its many other dialects such as Ikirera, Ikigoyi, even Ikinyamurenge, and the like? In the article the concern was about the reasons for changing the language which were advanced by RALC facilitating young learners at school, especially foreigners. For all intents and purposes, the new changes, according to RALC, are intended to make it much easier for young learners, as well as for facilitating foreigners interested in learning the language. For the Editor, the latter beats the imagination. He argues that the world over, language is the identity of a country and its nationals and that it is not changed anyhow or at anyone’s whims, just to make it easier for some people to learn it. To say that the language was changed so as to facilitate expatriates interested in learning it is tantamount to belittling its importance and sovereignty. However, RALC says that in reality, the instructions which were published concerned only the manner in which Kinyarwanda would be written, so that words which sound phonetically the same should be spelt the same. It emphasised the fact that there were no instructions whatsoever that required people to change the pronunciation of any word. In other words, the pronunciation of all the words whose spelling has been revised should remain the same, unaltered. In linguistics, there is a principle which states that words which sound the same should be spelt the same. Therefore, a person learning how to spell should be facilitated the task of having to write differently, words which sound phonetically the same. Like I mentioned above, there really shouldn’t have been any cause for alarm just because there has been minor changes in a language, which were intended for simplifying its orthography, in the first place. What could have really peeved some Rwandans is the mention of the idea that the changes in the language were intended to make it simple for foreigners. There is no country in the world which changes its language in order to make it simple for foreigners to learn. To date, Chinese and the French language are among the most difficult languages to learn, but they don’t simplify them for the benefit of foreigners. However, Rwandans should appreciate the fact that languages all over the world keep on changing, if only to improve the way they are written and spoken.
